If you never saw The Florida projectdirector Sean Baker’s critically acclaimed 2017 indie drama, well, there’s no time like the present! The Florida project is streaming free on Netflix and Kanopy, and is also available to buy and rent on digital platforms like Amazon.
The Florida project tells the story of a mother and daughter on the brink of homelessness in Kissimmee, Florida, while living in the shadow of the giant billion-dollar amusement park, Walt Disney World (which was originally dubbed “the Florida project ” while it was being developed). built).
Baker co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Chris Bergoch (the team also co-wrote Tangerine and red rocket), who said he was inspired to write the story after watching children in parking lots while visiting his mother in Orlando, Florida. It’s a real-life character movie that comes to a rather sudden end. If you find yourself confused by The Florida project movie, read on for a full breakdown of The Florida project end, he explained.
What is The Florida project about?
Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) is a six-year-old girl who lives in poverty with her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), in a rundown motel called the Magic Castle Inn & Suites in Florida, just outside of Disney World. Moonee befriends a new girl at the hotel, Jancey (Valeria Cotto), after she and her friends get in trouble for spitting on Jancey’s grandmother’s car.
It quickly becomes clear that Halley is not a very strict mother and lets Moonee run around, wild and unsupervised, all day. Moonee spends her days getting into trouble with Jancey and her friend Scooty (Christopher Rivera), who Halley is supposedly babysitting for her friend Ashley (Mela Murder). The children frequently irritate the motel manager, Bobby (Willem Dafoe), but he still takes care of the children and the other guests at his establishment.
One day, Moonee, Jancey and Scooty accidentally burn down the abandoned condos on a nearby property. When Scooty’s mother finds out what they did, she forbids Scooty from dating Moonee. She also stops giving Moonee free food at the restaurant where she works and cuts ties with Halley.
Halley has already lost her job as an exotic dancer and has been trying to make ends meet by reselling wholesale perfumes to tourists. After a few weeks of this, a security guard stops her and threatens to call the police. Without Ashley’s perfume sales or free food, Halley turns to sex work. She asks Moonee to take photos of her in a swimsuit for her online profile. When the clients arrive at the room, Halley puts Moonee in the bathtub with music blaring.
Bobby notices the influx of guests and cash from the motel to Halley and realizes what he is doing. He already faces pressure from upper management to keep the motel up to code. When a customer shows up to harass Halley for stealing her Disney World pass (which she scalped from a tourist), Bobby gets rid of him. But he warns Halley that she will be evicted if she continues his sex work. He tells her that from now on, all of her guests must register at the front desk with an ID.
Desperate, Halley asks Ashley to lend her some money. Ashley accuses Halley of being a slut (showing her a photo of her own online ad of her) and Halley responds by violently hitting Ashley in front of Scooty. The next day, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) shows up at Halley’s door. Clearly, Ashley called them.
The Florida project ending explained:
Halley cleans the motel room. But when the DCF agents arrive, this time with the police, the status of the room doesn’t matter. They obtained a copy of Halley’s online ad soliciting sex, which is enough evidence to keep Moonee away from her mother while she conducts an investigation. Moonee asks to say goodbye to her friend Scooty, who mentions that she is going to live with another family.
Moonee gets scared and runs away from the DCF agent. She knocks on Jancey’s door to say goodbye, sobbing. When Jancey sees how upset Moonee is, she takes Moonee’s hand. Together, the girls flee to Disney World. The girls arrive at the real Magic Kingdom and the movie ends.
The Florida project ending explained with analysis:
The Florida project is a movie about the side of Florida that Disney World tourists don’t see. While the rich kids take selfies with Mickey Mouse, Moonee takes photos of her mother in a swimsuit, so they can treat themselves to food. She is cutting the line at a food bank truck to pick up her free bread. She is asking for change on the street. All this happens less than a kilometer from the entrance to the Disney World amusement park. But none of that tourist money Disney makes goes to the residents who actually live there.
Tellingly, the name of the motel where Moonee lives is Magic Castle Inn & Suites, an obvious copy of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. (And the name tricks a tourist or two into staying there!) At the end of the movie, Jancey takes Moonee to the real Magic Kingdom castle. After living so close and yet in a completely different world for her entire life, Moonee finally gets to experience the childlike magic that tourists’ children have.
The film leaves open the question of whether Moonee and Jancey will return home. Some audiences found the ending abrupt and confusing, much to the surprise of director Sean Baker. “It’s left up to interpretation, but it’s not supposed to be literal, it’s supposed to be a moment where we put the audience in the headspace of a child,” Baker said of the ending in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve been watching Moonee use her imagination and wonder throughout the movie to make the best of the situation she finds herself in: she can’t go to the Animal Kingdom, so she goes to the safari behind the motel and looks at cows, He goes to the abandoned condos because he can’t go to the Haunted Mansion. And in the end, with this inevitable drama, it’s me telling the audience: ‘If you want a happy ending, you’re going to have to go to that child’s headspace because, here, that’s what it is.’ the only way to achieve it. It was always supposed to be a slice of life feature, where we spent a summer vacation with these kids and the audience was one of them. In the end, summer is over for me.”
If you’re interested in my interpretation: I see this as Jancey and Moonee just postponing the inevitable. I guess the girls will have a great day at Disney World, but they will eventually return home, where Moonee will be taken away by child services. That’s America, for you.
